Popular smoking articles, such as cigarettes, have a substantially cylindrical rod-shaped structure and include a charge, roll or column of smokable material, such as shredded tobacco (e.g., in cut filler form), surrounded by a paper wrapper, thereby forming a so-called “smokable rod” or “tobacco rod.” Normally, a cigarette has a cylindrical filter element aligned in an end-to-end relationship with the tobacco rod. Typically, a filter element comprises plasticized cellulose acetate tow circumscribed by a paper material known as “plug wrap.” Typically, the filter element is attached to one end of the tobacco rod using a circumscribing wrapping material known as “tipping paper.” It also has become desirable to perforate the tipping material and plug wrap, in order to provide dilution of drawn mainstream smoke with ambient air. A filtered cigarette is employed by a smoker by lighting the unfiltered end thereof and burning the tobacco rod. The smoker then receives mainstream smoke into his/her mouth by drawing on the filter end of the cigarette.
There are different types of filtered cigarettes that may be formed from various combinations of numerous different types of filter elements and tobacco-containing rods. Accordingly, it is important for the proper filter elements to be provided to the assembling equipment when filtered cigarettes of a particular type are to be manufactured. Otherwise, the wrong type of cigarettes will be manufactured unintentionally. Modern smoking article production equipment operates at high speeds, such that by the time it is determined that the wrong filter elements have been provided, a large number of the wrong type of cigarettes may have been manufactured and packaged. This may result, for example, in a mismatch between the branding or other information on the packages and the cigarettes therein, such that corrective measures have to be taken.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods that seek to verify that the proper filter elements are provided to the assembling equipment.